Category Archives: General

The explanation for the title of this post will remain, as so many things do, an in-joke between me and the two lovely ladies pictured here. Only with friends like this can I let down my guard and be silly and ridiculous and not worry about any of it. This was JoAnn and Ali after a bottle of bubbly (and a vesper or two) just before dinner and a show this past weekend in Boston.

They are a hoot on their own – but put the three of us together and it’s a different scene entirely. Amazeballs, y’all. (Usually there are wigs and costumes and Amber Jewels involved.)

Ali was acting as Alice the maid, attending to JoAnn as she got her sheer shirt together.

These photos, like the friends in them, make me laugh. There is no happier feeling.

The ride back from Boston is usually a sad one. If the weather matched my mood, it would be rainy and overcast, with a cruel, cutting wind, and a damp chill. The sky would match my tears, pouring forth salty raindrops as if ripped from the sea.

But on this Sunday, it couldn’t be more beautiful. The few drops of rain that had fallen in the night were now a memory. The sun had risen and burned any haze away. Walking down Braddock Park, I bask in the warmth of this late-summer day, smiling at the father who is teaching his daughter how to ride a bike, the two of them awkwardly and endearingly adjusting their matching helmets. Flowers bloom along the way, resplendent in the rich fullness of a season of growth. Lime green hydrangeas hang over wrought iron gates, deep purple sweet potatoes trail against gray stone, and begonias bloom so vibrantly orange that any over-saturated photo-shopping would pale in comparison.

Normally I am in a rush at this point, wishing only to get out and back into the work-week mindset. On this morning, I take my time. The calls of excited kids sound from a park. A dog and its owner click along the sidewalk. A man with sunglasses, a cup of coffee, and a mop of morning hair shuffles groggily in the opposite direction. By the time the short walk to my car is finished, I am beaming in the simple beauty of the day.

On the turnpike, the first signs of fall are just beginning to show. A stand of burning bush has been ignited. The first shades of red are seeping into the sumac. A lone maple glows bright orange in a sea of green. Someone has to start the show.

Bright bursts of cumulus clouds explode above the road, hanging low in the sky like cotton puffs on a blanket of blue. It is a brilliant scene, and this is the kind of sky that only the onslaught of early fall affords. 

Then, I do something I never do: I open the sun-roof. Ask Andy (or Chris and his ridiculous convertible in California), I’m not a sun-roof fan. Black hair + Direct sunlight = Burning scalp. Today, the wind is refreshingly cool. I raise my hand and feel the rush of it over my skin. Twisting it slowly in the fast-moving air, I feel free. I feel connected. I feel happy.

Beauty is around me. Beauty is in the other passengers in other cars. Beauty is in the goldenrod nodding along on the side of the road, in the clouds flying overhead, in the waving reeds gone to seed. It is, above all else, a pocket of peace. Such peace is rare, such moments usually rush right by me.

I pull over to get gas, but instead of getting right back on the turnpike, I pull into a parking space at the rest stop and step out of the car. The distant rush of other vehicles is muffled from this far away. I stand on the sidewalk and stretch my legs, looking up into the sky, into that brilliant sun. It feels good just to be alive.

The first week of September has come to a close, and the next one begins. This recap will be a quick one, as I am recapped out based on this post of gratuitous nudity and a linky-link-link extravaganza. I’m also gearing up for the best installment of this year’s project, coming up at the end of this week, along with a fuller, more comprehensive explanation of it. (Up until now it’s been hush-hush.)

The main accomplishment of the previous week was getting The Archives updated back to 2010 (including July). 

If the technical side of this site bores you as much as it does me, try out the man candy that requires no amount of strenuous thinking whatsoever, especially when the shirtless likes of David Beckham, Charlie Hunnam, Zac Efron, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Sean Avery are at hand.

If you happen to be in London in the next six months, help me out with this gigantic favor.

Speaking of Tom Ford, I am in love with his latest Private Blend, Plum Japonais.

Finally, when it doubt, eat it. Just eat it. Eat it!

This weekend I’m returning to Boston to attend a performance of ‘Wicked’ with my friend JoAnn. It’s her first time seeing the show, which is always a special occasion, and it’s a welcome diversion from all things upstate New York. September is one of my favorite times to be in Boston. Fall is one of those seasons that has a better beginning than ending, and while I usually like to wait for such rewards, I’ll take this one now.

The farmer’s markets begin to spill their gourds and squash from baskets, the flowers go from the fresh shades of spring bulbs to the autumnal hues of sunflowers and zinnias, and the scent of dying, drying leaves, warmed in the sun, rises from the ground. It is the beginning of the end, but it goes out in a blaze of glory.

Madonna, performing one of her enduring classics on the MDNA Tour. That’s all.

Having spent the bulk of this past weekend updating the Archives here (at least back through 2010 – scroll down and pick a month – any month!), I can now give a recap of both July 2011 and August 2011, which up until today had gone missing. They’re back now, after much tedious and tiresome copying and pasting (hello Day of Labor), and you can see all the ridiculous posts that I probably shouldn’t have even bothered with restoring. I kid. Most of the posts prior to 2012 have been edited and weeded out to only the strong and salacious, so have a go knowing that most of the filler has been excised. (There are just so many shirtless male celebrities I can bother with these days.)

Here are some highlights, including a naked Harry Potter (a.k.a. Daniel Radcliffe) as seen in the featured pics:

• At the ripe old age of fourteen, I’m doubtful that It Must Have Been Love.

• The movie may have gotten a PG-13 rating, but my Adventures in Babysitting post might have gotten an R for all the shit talk.

• If you’re hungry, there’s a Waldorf Chicken Salad.

• If you’re thirsty there’s a Lavender Cocktail, a Last Word, or a Sun Cocktail, all ripe for the summer picking.

• If you’re looking to see me make a total fool of myself for the cajillionth time, there’s this post recounting my days as a summer stalker.

• And since it’s summer, there’s always skinny dipping and stripping.

This is in no way serving to throw the rest of this summer away so soon – we have until at least October for some sunny hot weather – but it’s clear that fall is quickly approaching. It’s in the Sweet Autumn Clematis and goldenrod gone to bloom, and the grasses gone to seed. It’s in the morning chill, and the faster fall of dusk. Mostly, it’s in the sky, and the sun, and the way they are both so different at the end of summer as opposed to the beginning.

I don’t like looking back, but if I have to do it, I’d rather look back a few years than a few months. To that end, I’m not going to do a summer recap of 2013 just yet, but rather a list of summer memories that go further into the past. Here are some favorite memories of sunny seasons gone by:

June of 2010 brought this post about me catching creatures in the creek. Yes, I was a boy once – snails and puppy dog tails et. al. I also loved Reading Rainbow, but not hot subways in Boston.

July of 2010 brought about my first meeting with a childhood hero, as well as hints of my wedding coat, and the big reveal itself. A heatwave in Chicago was less exciting, and a one-night-stand in Provincetown proved more sad than salacious.

In August of 2010, memories of the delicious pull of Ogunquit Beach were strong, and by September 2010 I was ready to tell the tale of the first time I kissed a man, and to get naked (not at all the same thing – oh wait…) Of course, I offered my own kind of repentance for all of it.

The summer of 2011, starting in June, began with the gay pride parade in Boston, and this pride post. July 2011 hasn’t been fully updated in the archives, but there’s a Madonna Timeline for one of her summer hits, ‘This Used to Be My Playground‘ that might be worth a look (fun for its recollection of a psycho-roommate and trips to Russia and Finland). The entries for August of 2011 are slightly fuller, starting with a CYO Camp Crush, and another memory of the first man in my life, continuing with this magical book-seller, and ending up at an old bank, following a trail of sidewalk talk, but ultimately winding up empty.

The summer of 2011 closed out in September, with a wedding trip to Washington, DC, where I discovered the wonders of the Spa at the Mandarin Oriental, as well as the upsetting (at least to a full bladder) news that there’s no public restroom at the White House. Still, it was worth it for a family reunion of sorts.

Last summer began with the first time-out I ever gave my nephew (and also, incidentally, the last one – thus far, Noah Thomas). It also featured the king of summer programming, Bravo’s Andy Cohen, who had just written his first book, and memories of my first night dancing at Chaps.

Beneath a starry sky, amid a cacophony of crickets and the clicking of katydids, I swim to the end of August and the start of September. The branches of the seven sons’ flower tree are filled with their late-season blooms – small and unassuming, but packing a potently perfumed punch. On these muggy nights, the pool water has remained warm, a quasi-amniotic fluid in which I float, looking up at the light blanket of clouds, re-born at the end of summer, and trying valiantly to hang on, to hold tight to a season that must soon end. The last full month of summer has gone. September is not coming soon – it’s already here. And so, a poem, for knowing when to let go:

In Blackwater Woods

By Mary Oliver

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

He stands alone in the window, seeing the vague outline of what someone else might see. The luxury of being home in the middle of the day does not escape him, the illicit thrill of being unknown is an added spark. Slowly, the sunlight moves through the room, passing deeper into the sky, climbing up and over the bed.

These are his favorite hours to be there: from about three o’clock to six o’clock ~ the last stretch of sunlight in the bedroom. It is a quiet time. He honors that. No music, no talking, no phone. It takes a while to embrace that stillness, to calm the racing mind and quell the rushing heart. Eventually, though, if he can be patient, if he can let the thoughts come and go, everything settles down. A peace appears, not so much deliberately or with any sort of announcement, but more in the absence of chaos, in the removal of accustomed agitation. The relief of that is the closest thing to religion.

Now here’s a pouch I prefer fried. (Spicy avocado version.)

Having no control over everything, I turned 38 this past week on a quiet low-key sunny day in upstate New York (more on that later). We spent the day at Edith Wharton’s estate and garden, The Mount, which was amazing – did a little shopping at the Lee outlets, and returned home to have dinner with my parents. All in all, it was a very good day for this birthday boy. But since marking the passage of time is not my favorite thing to do, let’s take a quick look back and be done with it.

The infuriatingly tricky way to navigate through this site was only partially-successfully explained here. I recommend just typing words into the ‘Search’ feature at the bottom of the page and praying to get lucky.

Nothing inspires me more than a good song, which were in plentiful supply with the likes of Verdi Cries, Already Gone, Misty, and Darling Be Home Soon…

Unless it’s a new Tom Ford Private Blend, like this Rive d’Ambre. Now that is inspiring.

The amazing Ben Cohen tweeted me a Happy Birthday message, which just goes to show he’s not just beautiful on the outside, but on the inside as well. (Not that there was ever any doubt.)

Boston was filled with flowers, many flowers, on the way to Charlestown.

Because of the blue full moon, I took it all off and jumped in the pool on a steamy summer night. (That’s right, naked shots here and here.)

Finally, I said good-bye to not knowing when the truth in my whole life began. (Further proof that I can turn any post or conversation into a Madonna lyric.)